Scanning the Islands

Midwives in Indonesia are using a portable ultrasound scanner to improve mothers' and babies' survival rates.

With around 6,000 inhabited islands and an overstretched healthcare system, access to ultrasound machines for expectant mothers in rural Indonesia is a luxury rather than the norm.

But a handheld scanner, which enables midwives to examine pregnant women in local clinics or at home, is being introduced to improve maternal healthcare.

The mobile phone sized Vscan device, developed by General Electric, allows midwives to monitor the foetus’s position and movement and means high risk patients can be referred to a hospital for medical care.

Nidhi Dutt travels to Indonesia to meet midwives using the technology in a bid to increase the number of women and newborns surviving labour.

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